A WOODEN gun carriage is set to be raised from Southend’s own “Mary Rose” shipwreck next week – before taking pride of place in the town’s museum.

The discovery of unique artefact has been discovered in the wreck of the London, a second rate warship, which sank in the Thames Estuary in 1665 after a catastrophic gunpowder explosion.

The find has electrified the archaeological world as it is thought to be the only complete specimen from the period.

On Wednesday, an expedition will be sent to raise it from the wreck, where it has lain untouched under the mud of the river, before being sent to York for assessment conservation and, eventually, displayed in Southend Museum.

Alison James, from Historic England, who handles all discoveries under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, said: “It’s incredibly rare and we don’t really have any other complete examples of gun carriages from that period anywhere.

“It’s complete with all the implements and furniture that the gunner would have used to make the cannon fire – all the archaeological material is there with it so it’s hugely exciting.

“It’s been preserved so well because it’s been under the mud at the bottom of the Thames, enclosed in an environment without any oxygen, so all the creepy-crawlies that would normally erode it aren’t present because they can’t live, so what has survived is pretty much intact.

“We’ve even got the 350- year-old rope going through the pulley box but this has all recently come out of the mud and, once it’s exposed, it’s subject to biological attack so it’s imperative we recover it.”

The gun carriage could be with the York Archaeological Trust for as much as a year, she added, before being returned to Southend.

She said: “It’s such a high profile project and it’s really putting Southend on the map archaeologically as all the material will end up in Southend Museum – the day it comes back will be very exciting.”

Diver Steve Ellis, of V Mattacks fishmongers in Elm Road, Leigh, discovered the gun carriage last year after obtaining the only nonarchaeologist visiting licence for the wreck in 2010.

He said: “It’s really exciting so it’s nice to be able to pick it up – it would be nice to actually see it out of the water because it’s as rare as anything to have a 17th century gun carriage.”

The London was built in the 1650s as part of Oliver Cromwell’s Navy, hence is not referred to as ‘HMS’, but carried the Duke of York in 1660 as part of the fleet returning Charles II to England during the Restoration.